Nina Simone (1933–2003) was an American singer, pianist, and civil rights activist — a classically trained prodigy from Tryon, North Carolina who became one of the most important voices of the 20th century. Start with I Put a Spell on You or Wild Is the Wind, then work through the late-'60s RCA run. Dig into Nina Simone vinyl, CDs, and reissues at Wax Trax Records.
Eunice Kathleen Waymon was born in Tryon, North Carolina on February 21, 1933 as the sixth of eight children. She was a child prodigy classical pianist who aspired to become America's first Black classical concert pianist. She was rejected from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 1951 - a rejection she attributed to racism. She adopted the stage name Nina Simone (Nina from niña meaning little girl in Spanish; Simone after French actress Simone Signoret) while performing in Atlantic City nightclubs to spare her devout Methodist family knowledge of her secular work. Her recording career began with Little Girl Blue (1958, Bethlehem), featuring her international hit I Loves You, Porgy. She became involved in the American civil rights movement across the 1960s - particularly with the 1964 protest song Mississippi Goddam (written in response to the 1963 Birmingham church bombing and assassination of Medgar Evers) and the 1969 single To Be Young, Gifted and Black. She left the United States in the 1970s amid frustration with American racism and tax disputes, living in Barbados, Liberia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and finally France. She died of breast cancer on April 21, 2003 at age 70 in Carry-le-Rouet, France. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018 (posthumously). Her foundational influence on jazz, blues, soul, R&B, and broader American popular music is widely cited as one of the most important contributions to the form.
Nina Simone's sound combines jazz, soul, blues, R&B, gospel, classical, folk, and protest music with her distinctive contralto vocal delivery, virtuosic classical piano work, and range across multiple genres throughout her multi-decade career. Her foundational influence on American music history is widely documented.
Original Bethlehem, Colpix, Philips, RCA, and CTI Records pressings of the Nina Simone catalog are foundational items in jazz, soul, and broader popular music collecting. Multiple anniversary editions, audiophile reissues (Mobile Fidelity, Acoustic Sounds, Verve), and the comprehensive Sony/RCA Legacy reissue programs have been released.
Listeners new to Nina Simone typically start with Wild Is the Wind (1966), I Put a Spell on You (1965), or any of her late-1960s landmark RCA albums.
